Anyone interested in AAC quality, or people that have no interest but would like to help making this test better.You don't need excellent hearing, but some good gear is welcome (headphones are must-have).

--How do I take the test?

Download ABC/HR + the readme file here or here. If you already have ABC/HR, get the readme here.Further instructions, and links to the sample packages, are inside the readme.

--I'm on Linux/MacOS/something other than Windows. Can I take the test?

You can. But you won't be able to use the ABC/HR utility, that is Win32 only. Since the reference file must be hidden (That's the HR in the name), tests performed without it wouldn't be valid. So, I can't plot your scores against others. But your comments on sample quality and artifacts would still be welcome.

--When will the test finish?

The test is scheduled to end on June 15. This date may be extended if proved necessary.

If you have any other question, please post in this thread.

Thank-you very much,

Roberto.

This post has been edited by JohnV: Jun 10 2003, 01:36

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Get up-to-date binaries of Lame, AAC, Vorbis and much more at RareWares:http://www.rarewares.org

Oh, and if you want to do this and help share the bandwidth burden, please leave the download client open after it finishes. This creates a torrent "seed" which is what helps to propogate the file throughout the swarm. The more seeds, the faster everyone downloads.

If you want to create a perminent "mirror" of the files without having 12 seperate download boxes open, you can either download: http://btplusplus.sourceforge.net/ and point the incoming dir to where your .torrents are, then attempt to start downloading them again (overwritting the old ones), and this will create seeds and share the files. The other option is to download the bittorrent sources ( http://bitconjurer.org/BitTorrent/download.html ), making sure to have python installed on your system, and launch "btlaunchmany.py <somedir>" or "btlaunchmanycurses.py <somedir>" on the dir with all the .torrents.

If you want to create a perminent "mirror" of the files without having 12 seperate download boxes open, you can either download: http://btplusplus.sourceforge.net/ and point the incoming dir to where your .torrents are, then attempt to start downloading them again (overwritting the old ones), and this will create seeds and share the files.

I downloaded BT++ v0.5.4, set the Incoming dir to where the .torrent's already are, did Add Torrent -> from URL (and pasted the ha.org url), but nothing seemed to happen when I clicked OK. Nothing listed under Transfers or History. Will this program work properly if I'm behind a firewall, or do I have to open some ports?

If you want to create a perminent "mirror" of the files without having 12 seperate download boxes open, you can either download: http://btplusplus.sourceforge.net/ and point the incoming dir to where your .torrents are, then attempt to start downloading them again (overwritting the old ones), and this will create seeds and share the files.

I downloaded BT++ v0.5.4, set the Incoming dir to where the .torrent's already are, did Add Torrent -> from URL (and pasted the ha.org url), but nothing seemed to happen when I clicked OK. Nothing listed under Transfers or History. Will this program work properly if I'm behind a firewall, or do I have to open some ports?

Yes, but you will get better performance if other peers can connect to you. By default, BitTorrent listens on port 6881, trying incrementially higher ports if it's unable to bind. It gives up after 6889 (the port range is configurable.) It's up to you to figure out how to poke a hole in your firewall/NAT.

Unfortunately, I think it's too late now to come with such solution. Hopefully, people will pick up samples randomly, and whenever possible pick them all.

BTW, there are 12 torrents.

Whoops, too many programming assignments... I start all my counts at zero now.

QUOTE

QUOTE

Also, are these .torrent's the only way to download the files right now?

The links to download the .zip files form a server are inside the readme file.

It turns out, the BitTorrent client is actually pleasing to use; I was foolishly expecting it to be something obtrusive, although I should have higher expectations of the HA admins. It's very transparent! What a nice implementation of distributed downloading. Plus, the author looks eerily like a friend of mine.

QUOTE (Dibrom @ Jun 4 2003 - 05:09 PM)

You need to open some ports probably.

Okay, the original BitTorrent client was showing some upload activity before did anything to the firewall, but I opened the ports anyway.

--I'm on Linux/MacOS/something other than Windows. Can I take the test?

You can. But you won't be able to use the ABC/HR utility, that is Win32 only. Since the reference file must be hidden (That's the HR in the name), tests performed without it wouldn't be valid. So, I can't plot your scores against others. But your comments on sample quality and artifacts would still be welcome.

Good things come to those who wait Summer vacations are coming up, and depending on how much time is spent on design and doing it The Right Way, I refuse to believe that writing an ABC/HR app could take much more than a day to a week

Good things come to those who wait Summer vacations are coming up, and depending on how much time is spent on design and doing it The Right Way, I refuse to believe that writing an ABC/HR app could take much more than a day to a week

That would surely be extremely welcome, Dan.

Looking forward to that.

@everyone that already sent me test results: thanks a lot.

This post has been edited by rjamorim: Jun 5 2003, 17:27

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Get up-to-date binaries of Lame, AAC, Vorbis and much more at RareWares:http://www.rarewares.org

The tested option shows a high frequency cut off at 15505 Hz, while the -streaming cuts off at 18500 Hz. Also, isn't the general opinion to go for VBR rather than CBR?

I guess I'm showing my ignorance of most things AAC here, and perhaps the above is chosen to provide a level playing field amongst all the encoders, but aren't you looking for the best available AAC at around the 128 kbit mark? Certainly in my own testing, aacenc always gets close to 128 kbit with the -streaming profile.

Or perhaps -br 128 is the best choice with aacenc rather than -streaming quality wise?